Agenda and minutes

To appoint a Chair for the purposes of this meeting.

RESOLVED:  That Councillor Kanti Rabadia be appointed Chair of the Licensing Panel Hearing.

To receive declarations of disclosable pecuniary or non pecuniary interests, arising from business to be transacted at this meeting, from all Members present.

RESOLVED:  To note that there were no declarations of interest made by Members.

[Note:  Licensing Panel minutes are:-

(1)          approved following each meeting by the Members serving on that particular occasion and signed as a correct record by the Chair for that meeting;

(2)          not submitted to the next panel meeting for approval.

Reasons:  The Licensing Panel is constituted from a pooled membership. Consequently, a subsequent Panel meeting is likely to comprise a different Chair and Members who took no part in the previous meeting’s proceedings.  The process referred to at (1) above provides appropriate approval scrutiny].

(See Note at conclusion of these minutes).

Procedure to be followed at an oral hearing.

The Chair asked the Panel Members, officer/s, Responsible Authority/ies and other attendees at the meeting to introduce themselves and then outlined the procedure for the conduct of an oral hearing, which was set out in the agenda.

Report of the Corporate Director of Place

In attendance:

The Licensing panel carefully considered all the relevant information including:

·                 Written and oral representations by all the parties

·                 The Licensing Act 2003 and the steps that are appropriate to promote the licensing objectives

·                 The Guidance issued under section 182 of the Licensing Act 2003

·                 Harrow Council’s Licensing Policy

·                 Human Rights Act 1998

The Licensing panel hearing was held at the Auditorium, Harrow Council Hub, Forward Drive, Harrow, HA3 8FL.

In making its decision, the Licensing Panel carefully considered the application and written representations, as set out within the report and the verbal representations made at the hearing.

The application was for a new premises licence for a local community hall in South Harrow at the site of a former bank.  The panel heard how the applicant had 20 years’ experience of running an off-licence and post office in South Harrow and wanted to set up a community hall for the benefit of the local community.

The applicant (and his agent) explained to the panel that the premises could currently take around 150 people in total at any one time, and that he planned to host small parties and weddings.  Food would be served but would be prepared off site.  He confirmed that he had agreed with the Metropolitan Police to add certain conditions to the licence.

Questions were asked of the applicant by the panel, about noise levels and the noise report provided by the applicant.  The applicant said that the noise levels were unlikely to be heard beyond the premises and that they had applied for four Temporary Event Notices and that there had been no complaints.  Events would be pre-booked and those booking the events had brought their own sound systems.  The applicant indicated that he anticipated having 2-3 bookings per week and that they would be mainly at weekends. 

Clarification was sought with the applicant about the indoor sporting events, and he clarified that this was meant to be for televised sporting events such as football or cricket matched.  The applicant otherwise anticipated the venue being used for weddings and parties and the upstairs hall being used for business meetings.  The applicant advised that he did not have the staff for the upstairs hall and the downstairs hall to be open at the same time.

Following some concerns about street drinking the applicant advised that there had been concerns about the alleyway behind the premises but that he had cleaned it up and installed lighting and CCTV which meant that street drinkers were no longer gathering there.

The applicant offered that there would be a ‘drinking up’ time of 30 minutes before closing time. 

It should be noted that following changes to regulated entertainment in 2015, certain regulated entertainment are exempt from needing to be licenced and in this present case, for live music, a performance of amplified live music between  ...  view the full minutes text for item 117.